Reminder: The next flagship study from Sounds Profitable debuts THIS Wednesday, April 16th, at 2 p.m. EST in a live webinar hosted by Tom Webster. The Advertising Landscape is the largest survey ever fielded on podcast advertising effectiveness in the U.S. Be among the first to see information from the first part, and receive the slides directly once the presentation is over, by registering now!
Songwriters’ Spat with Spotify Is Now Impacting Podcasters by Ashley Carman
The latest edition of Carman’s Soundbite newsletter covers a growing trend of podcasts on Spotify getting copyright notices for wrongful use of copyrighted material. 70mm host Matt Kolowski reports particularly popular episodes of the show have been removed entirely for using clips to discuss the film. And it’s not just popular shows, as an Austin Powers discussion podcast averaging 150 downloads per episode got over 40 copyright notices in the past few weeks due to 10-15 second clips of the movie being used. According to an email Spotify sent Kolowski, this is due to the National Music Publishers’ Association filing punitive podcast takedown requests in retaliation for the dismissal of a lawsuit. As Tom Webster said in his presentation to CRS last year, it’s past time for music labels and podcast platforms to sit down and figure out how to crack the question of music in podcasting. There is a huge audience for it waiting to be fulfilled, and the current system largely involves podcasts about music/music-related topics getting caught in the crossfire.
A quick reminder to Download readers that employees of Sounds Profitable partner companies are eligible to receive a 33% discount on subscribing to Bloomberg to receive Soundbite. Get in touch to learn more.
In Q1 of this year, 45% of publishing professionals surveyed by Digiday+ Research said 61% or more of their companies’ revenues will come from advertising this year, down from 51% who said the same last year. Dependance on ad revenue as the majority of income has declined, while publishers anticipating a moderate amount of ad revenue has increased. How publishers gauge success is also shifting. Total ad revenue remains the top significant metric for measuring ad revenue outcome, (86%), but CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and ad pricing/yield are growing in popularity, with a wider spread of methodologies being used rather than just total revenue.
The Only Men Allowed to Podcast Are Tween Boys by E.J. Dickson
A profile of MD Foodie Boyz, a podcast starring four eight-grade friends in Maryland discussing food, and how it has emulated adult chat podcasts to great success. Since a viral Instagram moment last November, the show has amassed 200k followers on Insta and landed a cross-promotional trip to the Barstool Sports office to appear on Dave Portnoy-hosted podcasts. The Roost general manager A.J. Feliciano attributes Foodie Boyz and similar tween-focused podcasts to the next generation of podcasters seeing what worked for the last generation (e.g. the casual discussions of The Joe Rogan Experience) and emulating it through their own lens. Which has led to a breadth of kid-hosted content, ranging from tame discussions of school lunches to GSD Nation broadcasting the political hot takes of 11 and 13 year-old brothers from Arizona. In the same way Nickelodeon’s All That bridged the gap between children’s entertainment and adult sketch comedy, tween podcasts act as a stepping stone from Kids & Family to grown-up podcasting.
Young Americans’ favorite podcasts reveal a stark partisan split by Erica Pandey
Coverage of a new poll from Axios and Generation Lab, which surveyed 972 Americans aged 18 to 34 in late February. The survey established whether respondents voted for Trump or Harris in the 2024 election, then compared their podcast listening habits. As expected, largely partisan shows skew towards that party, with conservative voters listening to conservative-leaning podcasts ranging from The Charlie Kirk Podcast to more libertarian/centrist-focused outlets like The Joe Rogan Experience. Though some outliers kept both audiences equally, namely The Daily, TED Talks Daily, and Call Her Daddy returning similar if not equal audience numbers from both voter bases.
Your Audience Doesn’t Need You Anymore by Jessica Giles
An op-ed discussing the current state of media, attention, and content. In a world where social platforms are less and less pushing people outside of their ecosystems to visit publishers, content has to be stickier. Content aiming to get wider attention in a world where the average American can spend 12 hours a day consuming media in some form has to make a case for its own existence, why it’s inherently unique and worthwhile compared to the micro-doses of dopamine scrolling a feed or prompting gen-AI can provide.
As for the rest of the news…
- New research from Luminate shows 28% of all weekly podcast listeners are music superfans, leaving them 40% more likely to be in that music superfan group when compared to the overall population, meaning podcasting has lots of potential for more music-based shows.
- AdLarge has announced a new addition to the fwd. network with Watch Her Cook, a weekly podcast discussing the lives of extraordinary women.
- Pulitzer Prize-winning Futuro Media has announced a subscription program dubbed Futuro+ to support their independent journalism, including premium versions of existing and new Latino USA podcasts across three monthly tiers.
